Frank Joachim Wössner lives and works in Berlin. He studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and at ETH Zürich. Since 2008 he is registered architect at Architektenkammer Baden-Württemberg. Before setting up his own practice in 2010 he worked with Morger & Degelo Architekten in Basel and Caruso St John Architects in London, where he was involved as a project architect in a wide range of international private and public projects with a main focus on museums, art galleries and exhibition designs such as Newport Street Art Gallery for Damien Hirst in South London, the National Offices for the Arts Council England in Central London or Thomas Demand’s ‘Phototrophy’ exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz. Since 2010 he is holding a teaching position as assistant professor at Potsdam School of Architecture and was invited as guest critic, e.g. at Kingston University in London. Together with Eva-Maria Stadelmann and Bernd Schmutz he has also established Stadelmann Schmutz Wössner Architekten in 2015.

Current projects include a private house for two families in Stuttgart, the reconfiguration of a contemporary art gallery in Berlin, a refurbishment of an apartment from 1914 in Berlin, the conversion of a 19th-century mill building into a live/work home for a filmmaker couple near Berlin as well as several exhibition designs, e.g. for the Globale at ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe or Actopolis commissioned by the Goethe Institut in collaboration with Urbane Künste Ruhr.

Photographs of the GLOBALE exhibitions at ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnik Karlsruhe and of the Greek Pavilion at Venice Biennale by Simon Menges, Berlin. Photographs of the RYBN.ORG vitrines at Nervous Systems exhibition at HKW Berlin by Laura Fiorio and Bernd Schmutz. All other images used in any renderings are acknowledged as belonging to their respective owners.

The gallery is located in the ground floor of a historic building from the late 19th century near Spittelmarkt in Berlin Mitte/Kreuzberg. The project includes the reconfiguration of a street gallery including a new street facade opening up to the surrounding urban space, two large gallery spaces along the courtyard in the rear as well as office and storage facilities. The new street gallery is due to open in autumn 2016.

Our vitrines for artist group RYBN.ORG from Paris, originally designed for their work ‘Algorithmic Trading Freak Show’ for the ‘Infosphäre‘ exhibition in line with the GLOBALE at ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, are currently on show at the exhibition ‘Nervous Systems‘ at HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. The exhibition is open to the public from March 11th until 9th of May 2016. A catalogue has been published in conjunction with the exhibition on Spector Books, edited by Anselm Franke, Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski.

‘ACTOPOLIS – The Art of Action‘ is a call to action and co-author the city across disciplines, national boundaries and cultural differences. The ACTOPOLIS projects are being developed jointly in a transnational and interdisciplinary working process by various curators and artists during 2015 before being implemented in local interventions in Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, Ankara/Mardin, Oberhausen, Sarajevo and Zagreb in 2016. The documentation of the various projects will be shown in a series of exhibitions in the seven cities as listed above from 2016 until 2017.
The exhibition architecture translates in an abstract way the elements of urban space into a smaller scale within the exhibition room – its spaces, squares and paths offer a platform for display, workshops and events. The flexible modular system is able to respond to the various spacial conditions of the different exhibition places in each city.

This 19th-century mill building will be converted into a 400 sqm live/work home for a filmmaker couple with family in Gross Schönebeck, a small village in the rural country side of the Schorfheide, about an hour drive away from Berlin. The building complex consists of three buildings surrounding a central courtyard, the former mill with its bakery shop, the house and the original bakehouse with its huge masoned baking oven and workshop.

2016 is the 300th anniversary of the death of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In addition, the ‘Leibniz Gemeinschaft’, which was founded in Hannover in 1966, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its foundation. 2016 is also the year of the ‘Tenth International Leibniz Congress’. Events are planned across the world to celebrate the ‘Leibniz Year 2016’.
On the occasion of these anniversary celebrations we have been invited by the Leibniz Gemeinschaft to design a number of different sized stages to house their public events. The project has been carried out in collaboration with graphic design studio NODE Berlin/Oslo who were responsible to design the CI. In conjunction with the graphical concept idea, the proposed design implements the significant motive of the ‘L’ as a structural and spacial element to frame its content. The stages can be set up in different circular sizes, e.g. 90°, 180°, 270° or even 360°. The circular geometry of the stage design reflects the holistic demand to science by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, its multifaceted figure radiates from its centre towards the audience.

We have won the invited competition to design the exhibition architecture for the GLOBALE at ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe. The GLOBALE is a new format for a quadrennial art exhibition, conceived by Peter Weibel and the ZKM, representing the richness and diversity of contemporary global art production. The GLOBALE exhibitions has been shown in both museums at ZKM, the ‘Museum für Neue Kunst’ and the ‘Medienmuseum’. We have been responsible for the exhibition architecture of three exhibitions ‘Infosphere‘, ‘Exo-Evolution‘ and ‘Allah’s Automata‘ on a total area of 8.300 sqm.
The design is a flexible and non-hierarchical modular system of wall elements, various vitrines and furniture pieces as well as taller constructions for large displays, performance and special events. Designed as a timber frame structure, the modules will provide a maximum of transparency to create a polyphonic multilayered display with interrelations between the exhibits of various disciplines such as art, architecture, design, music, science, economics, ecology amongst others.
The GLOBALE opened to the public on the occasion of the 300-year anniversary celebrations of the City of Karlsruhe in June 2015 and continued with several temporary exhibitions until mid 2016.

In line with the GLOBALE we have also been commissioned by the ZKM to design two satellites for the ‘GLOBALE Lounge’ on the first floor of the ZKM, a small arena with about 30 seats for talks and other events as well as a book display tower for GLOBALE related publications in the ZKM library. The two elements are closely related to the modular system especially designed by us for the GLOBALE exhibitions, but RGB colours has been additionally used to emphasise the rather lively character of the events taking place at the ‘GLOBALE Lounge’.

Following an invited competition we have designed the exhibition architecture for Stefanos Tsivopoulos’ ‘History Zero‘ representing Greece at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.
A tall circular space has been designed as an archive at the centre of the pavilion to exhibit the research material of the artist with 32 ‘Alternative Currencies’, trade and exchange processes between bit-coins, bartering and gift economies, all shown as a panoramic graphic display on one long continuous wall. A circular bench at the bottom of the timber-clad space allows visitors to rest, to study the material on the walls or to meet, thus making the Greek Pavilion into a place for the whole Giardini. Visually and acoustically separated by spatial threshoulds lined with draped curtains, the central rotunda is surrounded by three rooms for showing the films of the artist.
The architecture for the pavilion is intended to act like a background for the artworks, at the same time the specific natures of each part of the installation are reflected with a range of characterful and atmospheric qualities. The architecture has been embedded into the original building to make an entity out of the pavilion, the display spaces and the art.
Stefanos Tsivopoulos’ ‘History Zero’ has also been shown at Stella Art Foundation Moscow, the Museum of Cycladic Art Athens and at MuCEM Marseille.

Competition project for the urban redevelopment around St. Alfons Church in Würzburg including several new apartment buildings with up to 36 units and the architectural redesign of the St. Alfons nursery building.

The site is located in the heart of the “Strickereiquartier” in St. Gallen, originally the industrial quarter for textile production, characterised by its linear block structure. The project comprises a new extension building for a sports hall and multifunctional assembly hall as well as the renovation and reconfiguration of the existing 120 year old listed school building of St. Leonhard School.

Competition project for a temporary, multi functional and portable exhibition pavilion for the Goethe Institut in India. The pavilion has been designed as a mobile tent structure to provide a maximum of flexibility for transportation and for reconstruction in seven different main cities spread across India. The crystalline shape of the pavilion has its origin in the contour lines of Germany. The 400 sqm sized flexible column-free pavilion provides a venue space for a large number of different scenarios, as for concert-, party-, film- or theatre events as well as for different proportioned exhibition spaces including catering areas. The illuminated textile covering the tent structure is reminiscent to the colourful lanterns of the traditional Hindu-festival of Diwali as well as the traditional clothing fabrics of the host country. The structure is shimmering through the covering fabrics in its pure ornamental beauty.

Competition project for a new cultural centre of Alzenau including new buildings for a city hall and music school. The proposed ensemble, a city hall, music school and a third building with a yet undefined public cultural use, is forming the new cultural centre of the city. The ensemble is situated within a huge landscape garden of 9 hectars along the river Kahl. Its presence relates to the classical idea of a ‘Kulturtempel’ surrounded by landscape. The three buildings are forming a new public square which opens up on one side offering direct views towards the historic centre, the market square, the church and the town hall of Alzenau. In the centre of the ‘Kulturpark’ the city hall houses a large multifunctional performance space with up to 1000 seats.

The competition project comprises the complete reconfiguration of the exhibition area throughout all floors of the existing building as well as a new roof extension constructed as a light weight steel structure replacing the existing pitched roof from the 1950s. The new roof structure relates to the horizontal and vertical lines of the historic facade, the only leftover of the original listed building after the damage of WWII. The prominent pyramid like corner emphasises the historic corner risalit and houses the new central event hall at this representative spot with its spectacular views overlooking the surrounding city. The main access stair is being relocated to its original position in the inner corner of the L-shaped building to enable the prominent rooms within the corner risalit to become again a central part of the new circuit of the main exhibition area.

Competition project for the reconfiguration of Rogäsen Estate in Rosenau, Brandenburg. The project consists of the renovation and conversion of the Grade I listed main house, its stable yard buildings and the new design of three rows of terraces with a number of different sized live work units.

Gutshofanlage Rogäsen in Rosenau, Brandenburg, 2009

Annual exhibition with selected drawings by students of Frank Joachim Wössner in the foyer and gallery space of the main building at FH Potsdam. The show was opened in line with the open house day in June 2013.

As part of an ongoing research project Frank Joachim Wössner is working with his students on a permanently growing digital archive with architectural surveys of selected urban quarters, typologies and listed monuments of Potsdam.